Random Word Poetry

For a long time now I have been doing daily (or almost daily) poems based on random words. I got the idea originally from a poetry contest which offered 5 random words for you to use. I found it on twitter so I turned it onto a personal challenge to write a poem based on those 5 words that would fit in a tweet (back when they were 140 characters long). I'm so weird I found the challenge to be loads of fun.

Eventually I moved to using an app which generated 6 random words, and I would handwrite a poem (of any length) in a journal I kept just for this purpose. That worked fine for years, but I found the writing/revising process rather messy when done with regular pen and paper - as a result my poetry journal became a lot of crossed out words, words written over other words, and arrows indicating how something should be moved from point A to B. There was also the added factor of wanting to post said poems online (instagram, twitter, a blog???) but in a photo/word art format. Since the journal was/is often a mess, that meant an added step (and more time spent) to turn it into something I could post.

That "problem" spawned the idea of using a magnetic whiteboard and those little magnetic words that come in those refrigerator poetry kits (I bought 2 or 3 different sets of words). So I now have a box of magnetic words from which I randomly draw over and over until I get 6 actual words (excluding ones like: it, and, of, but, etc.) The real words go in a box marked "Words I have to use" and the others go in one marked "Words I don't have to use." And then I get to work.

I'm going to start posting pics of my magnetic whiteboard poetry on this site ASAP.

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